Abstract
This chapter examines the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the relationship between citizenship and education. The section “Citizenship in Rousseau’s Thought” offers a sketch of Rousseau’s political ideas and his understanding of the nature, requirements, and duties of citizenship. Section “Amour-propre and the Challenges to Citizenship” explains why education is required to form citizens. The chief reason for this turns on Rousseau’s view of the passion of amour-propre, which, once inflamed, impedes the development of civic virtue and the performance of citizen duty. In Rousseau’s thought, education has among its principal aims the prevention of amour-propre’s development into its inflamed variant. Section “Rousseau’s Educational Project(s): Domestic and Civic” outlines Rousseau’s educational project and scholarly disagreements about how we are to understand it. One influential interpretation holds that Rousseau offers us two distinct models of education – domestic and civic – which are opposed to one another. A second, more recent interpretation holds that the two models can be read as parts of a single scheme. The section examines arguments for both interpretations before proceeding to discuss the details of Rousseau’s educational project under the second interpretation.
References
Canovan, M. (1983). Arendt, Rousseau, and human plurality in politics. The Journal of Politics, 45(2), 286–302.
Cooper, L. D. (1999). Rousseau, nature, and the problem of the good life. University Park: Penn State University Press.
Dent, N. J. H. (1988). Rousseau. New York: Blackwell.
Gomes, B. (2018). Emile the citizen? A reassessment of the relationship between private education and citizenship in Rousseau’s political thought. European Journal of Political Theory, 17(2), 194–213.
Hanley, R. (2012). Rousseau’s Virtue Epistemology. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 50(2), 239–263.
Kelly, C. (1987). To persuade without convincing. American Journal of Political Science, 31(2), 321–335.
Kolodny, N. (2010). The explanation of amour-propre. Philosophical Review, 119(2), 165–200.
Marks, J. (2006). The divine instinct? Rousseau and conscience. Review of Politics, 68, 564–585.
McLendon, M. (2014). Rousseau and the minimal self: A solution to the problem of amour-propre. European Journal of Political Theory, 13(3), 341–361.
Morgenstern, M. (1996). Rousseau and the politics of ambiguity. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Neuhouser, F. (2008). Rousseau’s theodicy of self-love. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Hagan, T. (1999). Rousseau. London: Routledge.
Pagani, K. (2015). Man or citizen: Anger, forgiveness, and authenticity in Rousseau. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Putterman, E. (2010). Rousseau, law, and the sovereignty of the people. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shklar, J. (1969). Men and citizens: A study of Rousseau’s social theory. London: Cambridge University Press.
Sreenivasan, G. (2000). What is the general will? The Philosophical Review, 109(4), 545–581.
Williams, D. L. (2007). Rousseau’s platonic enlightenment. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Williams, D. L. (2014). Rousseau’s social contract: An introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Primary Texts
Rousseau, J.-J. (1990). Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques. In R. Masters & C. Kelly (Eds.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 1). Hanover: University Press of New England. Translated by Judith Bush, Christopher Kelly and Roger Masters.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1992a). Political Economy. In R. Masters & C. Kelly (Eds.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 3, pp. 140–170). Hanover: University Press of New England. Translated by Judith Bush, Roger Masters, Christopher Kelly and Terence Marshall.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1992b). Second discourse. In R. Masters & C. Kelly (Eds.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 3, pp. 1–95). Hanover: University Press of New England. Translated by Judith Bush, Roger Masters, Christopher Kelly and Terence Marshall.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1994). The social contract. In R. Masters & C. Kelly (Eds.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 4, pp. 127–224). Hanover: University Press of New England. Translated by Judith Bush, Roger Masters and Christopher Kelly.
Rousseau, J.-J. (2001a). Letter to Beaumont. In C. Kelly & E. Grace (Eds.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 9, pp. 17–83). Hanover: University Press of New England. Translated by Christopher Kelly.
Rousseau, J.-J. (2001b). Letters written from the mountain. In E. Grave & C. Kelly (Eds.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 9, pp. 131–306). Hanover: University Press of New England. Translated by Judith Bush and Christopher Kelly.
Rousseau, J.-J. (2005). The state of war. In C. Kelly (Ed.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 11). Hanover: University Press of New England. Translated by Judith Bush and Christopher Kelly.
Rousseau, J.-J. (2006). Moral letters In C. Kelly (Ed. and Trans.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 12). Hanover: University Press of New England, pp.175–203.
Rousseau, J.-J. (2010). Emile or on education. In C. Kelly & A. Bloom (Eds. and Trans.), The collected writings of Rousseau (Vol. 13). Hanover: University Press of New England.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Gomes, B. (2019). Rousseau on Citizenship and Education. In: Peterson, A., Stahl, G., Soong, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67905-1_50-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67905-1_50-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67905-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67905-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education